With an abundance of safe presenters on TV, Ben Lawrence wonders whether
dangerous documentary makers are a thing of the past

At the start of his 1972 documentary series Ways of Seeing, John Berger approached Botticelli’s Mars and Venus and, brandishing a scalpel, carved around the face of the Roman goddess of loveas she gazed across at the dozing Mars. The painting was a fake but to many viewers Berger’s act must have been provocative. Over four episodes, the Marxist critic went on to disturb established notions of Western art; arguing how reproductions altered meaning, the female form had been objectified, and the meaning of art had been constructed by a cultural elite.

Commissioned by the BBC, this was outré stuff and immediately regarded as a milestone in arts programming. The British academic, tousle-haired in a wide-lapelled shirt, addressed the viewer with an unsettling zeal that compelled you to follow his doctrine. It is hard to imagine anyone half as radical as Berger being given their own TV series today.

Look at our current rota of BBC documentary presenters – Amanda Vickery, Jim Al-Khalili, Pamela Cox, Andrew Marr – all highly skilled, all passionate about what they do, all very, very safe. These are not people who are going to agitate our brains; they are there to tell a story, to enlighten us, fulfilling the ambitions of Lord Reith. Some of them must make works that conform to the strictures of that horrible, pompous phrase “landmark programming”, others are there to foist contemporary relevance on us; as if the only way our feeble brains can contemplate complex ideas is to see our own lives reflected.

Perhaps our fractured times mean we, as viewers, need the reassurance of conventional presenting techniques. After all, challenging orthodox thought makes us vulnerable. Dig too deeply and you might not like what you find.

But Ways of Seeing was made in the Seventies, another turbulent decade. Trade union protests brought the country to its knees. The National Front was agitating against the multiracial fabric of post-war Britain. An oil crisis precipitated a three-day week and plunged us into darkness.

But there was something else about the Seventies that meant we cherished our TV iconoclasts. We were still high on the counter-cultural zeal of the previous decade and we celebrated any break with convention. Universities began to teach courses through the lens of feminist or Marxist ideology, significant progress was made in the fight for female equality and gay rights.

On television, we also saw Jacob Bronowski (pictured above), the Polish-born inventor, mathematician and poet trace society’s development through our understanding of science in The Ascent of Man. Difficult ideas were made palatable (but not oversimplified) by Bronowski, a splendid figure, trussed up in a heavy-tweed suit, peering at the audience through thick spectacles and speaking in an even thicker central European accent. His erudite monologues were dazzling. In one extraordinary scene, Bronowski visited Auschwitz where many of his relatives had perished, raked the ashes of the dead through his hands and, in an apparently unscripted speech, spoke of the need to combine technology with accountability. This was coruscating, necessary television.

But iconoclasts could be seen everywhere on TV in less obvious formats and well into the next decade.Chef Keith Floydbrought flair to the often cosy world of cookery programmes with a chaotic and abrasive style. David Bellamy aired trenchant (and prophetic) views on environmentalism in his wildlife documentaries.

Floyd and Bellamy were big personalities, their programmes were as much about them as their subjects. But iconoclasm came from quieter quarters, too. In his 1974 masterpiece, Gosling’s Travels, the softly spoken broadcaster Ray Gosling set out to investigate Britishness through the working class or the seaside town. There were no big sweeping statements, just a skew-whiff curiosity and a kindness that made him instantly connect with his interviewees and elicit unusual confessions.

I’d like to make a plea to those commissioners who are anxious about relevance, bias and viewing figures. Take a chance on the agitators, the revolutionaries, the free thinkers. I don’t think it’s irresponsible to make a documentary about Elizabeth I from, say, a lesbian outlook. Unique voices help engage and develop the viewer’s own thoughts.

Thankfully, not everyone plays safe. Last year, Jonathan Meadeswrote and presented a magnificent documentary on Essex, a sort of psycho-geographical journey in which he analysed the county’s flatlands, oil refineries and soupy-grey coastal skies with the intellectual verve of a theologian scrutinising the Gnostic Gospels. Now that’s radical.